Fury blazed in her eyes. “Are you denying that you went undercover and followed me for two years?”
His jaw tightened. “No, but—”
“Are you saying that when you detained me aboard your ship after the Windemere incident your intention wasn’t at least partly to fuck information out of me?”
His nostrils flared. “Partly, but then—”
“And are you trying to tell me that when you stowed away on my ship, your intention wasn’t to decide once and for all if I was the agent selling information to the Federation?”
He swallowed hard. This was bad. She knew everything. “Fuck, it isn’t what you think.”
“It’s exactly what I think,” she retorted, before yanking her arm from his grip and storming out.
Marius moved first to follow her. “Sable. I tried to warn you about him.”
She continued downstairs, leaving the two men to trail behind her. “Go to hell, Marius. How do you think I discovered who he was? You kept popping up in my life in all the wrong places. The first thing I did after I moved in was use your computer to access your records. I know all about the tracking devices you’ve been putting on my ships.”
“I can explain—” he began.
“Don’t bother,” she said curtly. “In a way, I’m grateful, even though that damned tracking device almost got me killed by the Federation. Once I got into your record, I saw a Charles Stein poking around in there. I looked him up and found out he’s the assistant to Security Council President D. Atkinson, presently on a mission of Interstellar Security. It didn’t take me a second to put it together. Maybe if you’d been doing your job instead of stalking me, you would have remembered voting him into office.” She threw her free hand up in the air. “I’m done with pushy, overbearing, domineering, lying, bullshitting vampire Masters. I think I’ll find me a nice docile human male for once. Someone I can push around for a change.”
“Sable!” the two Masters cried in stunned horror.
She waved at them over her shoulder and slammed the front door shut behind her.
* * * * *
Derek stood on the edge of the expansive ballroom in the Interstellar Council Headquarters and watched the hundreds of dignitaries and their dates swirl by on the dance floor. From the corner of his eye, a glimmer of golden hair caught his attention.
Marius Drake danced by with his fiancé, a beautiful woman who looked very much like him—cold and blonde. It had taken the other Master less than a month to find a newer, more docile mate after realizing that Sable was far more vamp than he could handle. Marius had tolerated her walking out on him once, but the second time was too much for his monumental ego.
Derek groaned inwardly. He, on the other hand, was still pining away for his one true love. He’d waited seven hundred years to find her and he would love her forever. He’d tried to track her down, but she’d simply disappeared and he had no idea where to look. When Sable Taylor wanted to hide, she knew just how to do it.
He turned away from the festivities and headed down the hallway toward his offices. Work was his entire existence lately. All work and no play made Derek a very grumpy vampire. He hadn’t gone this long without sex in over six hundred years and it showed. He was curt and short-tempered, and since he’d ordered half his staff to scour the universe for Sable everyone knew why.
He strode through the open door leading to his outer offices and then further into his own expansive suite. He went straight to his desk and checked his messages. Sixteen agents had reported in, but the results were all the same—no sign of Sable.
He slammed his fist into the desk. “Damn it, baby, where are you?”
I hear you’ve been looking for me.
He looked up in shock, then shot to his feet. Sable lounged in the doorway, her long legs crossed at the ankles, her torso encased in the old-fashioned silver dress from Rashier 6. Her hair was piled high on her head, and she was gorgeous. Breathtaking.
“You came back,” he whispered, insanely worried that he’d frighten her away.
Pushing away from the doorjamb, she sauntered in with an exaggerated sway of her hips that made his cock harden instantly. “Why did you suspect me of treason?” she asked in a conversational tone of voice that couldn’t hide the hurt in her eyes.
“Your file was incomplete, with large gaps and inconsistencies. In fact, Captain Donnie hid you so well, I recently promoted him. He had you listed in the IAB database as a droid, an area I’m ashamed to say I never thought to look in, so I never caught it. As far as I knew, you were a bounty hunter, but unlike most, you didn’t take breaks after every capture. You never stopped hunting. It was a red flag to me that you needed so much money and despite how many captures you made, you never seemed to get ahead financially. The leak was coming out of the Delta Sector field office and that’s the one you worked out of the most. It was reasonable to investigate you.”
“I see.” She licked her bottom lip. “When did you realize you were wrong?”
“After those two days on my ship.” He rounded his desk. “When I established our first mental connection you were distant and secretive, but I sensed nothing but good in you and a strong desire for justice.”
“You still thought I was a criminal.”
“There were too many questions, baby, and you block me very well. Too well. But even if you had been involved in something illegal, I would have found a way to keep you.”
The left strap of her dress slipped down her shoulder, displaying the creamy swell of her breast. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were when I told you I was IAB?”